HSN Statement on Digital Attacks on HSN and Honduran Organizations

A new blog and Facebook page appeared recently calling itself “Defensores de Honduras” (Defenders of Honduras), which, on November 14th, published distortions and misinformation in an attempt to discredit our network and our coordinator in Honduras, Karen Spring.

This attack was part of an article published on the blog and FB page about the assassinations of two members of the campesino organization MUCA, including its president Jose Angel Flores, that accuses human rights defenders Berta Oliva and COFADEH and others of protecting drug traffickers in northern Honduras. The article also prominently displays our organization’s logo and a picture of Karen Spring, while denigrating our solidarity work, asserting that the HSN is “totally politicized and aligned with the extremist ideas…”. (1)

The viewpoint and work of the HSN, a network of diverse organizations from the US and Canada, is no secret. The HSNetwork was organized immediately after the 2009 coup in solidarity with the Honduran people’s movement and organizations that opposed the ousting of the legitimately elected president and in defense of human rights. We have organized accompaniment and educational delegations and speaking tours; denounced violence and repression in Honduras including all the assassinations of campesinos and campesinas in the Aguan Valley. We have called for complete investigations of all the assassinations. We oppose the US State Department’s September 2016 certification of human rights progress in Honduras and lobby the US congress to end US financing of state violence in Honduras, including supporting the recently proposed Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act in the House of Representatives. We believe that it is this work that is making our organization a target of attacks. (2)

We deplore these attacks and condemn the fact that they are a provocation that increases the risk to persons already at risk for their work in defense of human rights. We consider the attacks from “Defenders of Honduras” to be the latest in an orchestrated campaign of psychological warfare to confuse and destroy the social and political movements opposed to authoritarianism and militarization and to isolate them from international support. We recognize this scenario. It is the same script written by the US State Department and US intelligence agencies and used in the 1954 overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, in the Central American conflicts of the 1980’s and in Colombia to the present day. It is a scenario to justify and incite violence and conflict and to create “false positives” and call them extremists. This is about government-backed impunity and an effort to destroy the social fabric of the movements in the Aguan. The very use of the term “extremist ideas” reveals that this is not really about the crimes of narcos in the Aguan.

Since the 2013 elections and even more since President Hernandez took office, a plethora of social media accounts with similar phrasing and messages and false accusations have appeared attacking Honduran journalists, social movement leaders, and human rights defenders, both national and international. The accusations echo statements made by President Hernández and his administration’s officials, which claim that in defending human, civil and territorial rights, these people are defaming the country, organizing violence, or more recently that they are linked to organized crime. Meanwhile, international solidarity and human rights activists are accused of being “aligned with the extremist ideas” of those Honduran defenders and activists. In fact, it is the Hernández administration and Honduran security forces who organize violence against the social movements and anyone who dares to publicize or advocate for their cause.

The HSN is not neutral, but we are truthful. The truth is that we stand with the Honduran people and with their organized social movements. We defend human and civil rights within the framework of recognized international standards, and we work to end our governments’ support for the violent authoritarianism and neoliberalism that is destroying Honduras.